• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 745 0

career. It is, indeed, according to the stability and might of this character that one succeeds or fails. No matter how ingenuous the toil of labor, or how transcendent the accomplishment to one of trivial character, if there be no force behind them, both are thrown away and wasted. Character is the force behind the keen-edged tools that accomplishes the work. If it be founded upon principles of eternal truth, it is well.

“Do not consider anything for your interest which makes you break your word, quit your modesty, or inclines you to any practice which will not bear the light, or look the world in the face.” —Marcus Aurelius

Myself

FROM THE FRIENDLY WAY, 1917

By Edgar Guest

I have to live with myself, and so

I want to be fit for myself to know;

I want to be able as days go by

Always to look myself straight in the eye;

I don’t want to stand with the setting sun

And hate myself for the things I’ve done.

I don’t want to keep on a closet shelf

A lot of secrets about myself,

And fool myself as I come and go

Into thinking that nobody else will know

The kind of man I really am;

I don’t want to dress myself up in sham.

I want to go out with my head erect,

I want to deserve all men’s respect;

But here in the struggle for fame and pelf,

I want to be able to like myself.

I don’t want to think as I come and go

That I’m bluster and bluff and empty show.

I never can hide myself from me,

I see what others may never see,

I know what others may never know,

I never can fool myself—and so,

Whatever happens, I want to be

Self-respecting and conscience free.

Do Your Duty in All Things

A Letter from Robert E. Lee to His Son, 1852

George Washington Custis Lee was nineteen years old and attending West Point when he received this letter from his father.

Arlington House, April 5, 1852

My dear Son:

I am just in the act of leaving for New Mexico. My fine old regiment has been ordered to that distant region, and I must hasten to see that they are properly taken care of. I have but little to add in reply to your letter of March 26. Your letters breathe a true spirit of frankness; they have given myself and your mother great pleasure.

You must study to be frank with the world, frankness is the child of honest courage. Say what you mean to do on every occasion, and take it for granted you mean to do right. If a friend should ask a favor, you should grant it, if it is possible and reasonable, if not, tell him plainly why you cannot. You will wrong him and yourself by equivocation of any kind. Never do a wrong thing to make a friend or keep one. The man who requires you to do so is dearly purchased at a sacrifice. Deal kindly but firmly with all your classmates. You will find it the policy which wears best. Above all do not appear to others what you are not. If you have any fault to find with anyone, tell him, not others, of what you complain. There is no more dangerous experiment than that of undertaking to be one thing before a man’s face and another behind his back. We should live and act and say nothing to injure of any one. It is not only best as a matter of principle but it is the path to peace and honor.

In regard to duty, let me in conclusion of this hasty letter, inform you that nearly a hundred years ago there was a day of remarkable gloom and darkness, still known as the dark day, a day when the light of the sun was slowly extinguished as if by an eclipse. The legislature of Connecticut was in session and as its members saw the unexpected and unaccountable darkness coming on, they shared in the general awe and terror. It was supposed by many that the day of judgment had come. Some one in the consternation of the hour moved for an adjournment. Then there arose an old patriotic legislator, Davenport of Stamford, who said that if the last day had come, he desired to be found in his place of duty, and therefore moved that candles be brought in so that the house could proceed with its duty. There was quietness in that man’s mind, the quietness of heavenly wisdom, an inflexible willingness to